Six years after being abandoned by Bristol Rovers and taken under the umbrella of Filton College, the stand-alone Super League club Bristol Academy are set for both their first FA Cup final and a debut in the Champions League following Sunday's 3-0 victory over Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final.

The FA having decreed that next season's entrants into the Champions League will be the two FA Cup finalists (Arsenal meet Barnet in next week's other semi), Bristol are looking forward to a double-first that had Simon Arnold, the club's chairman since its formation as Rovers in 1998, admitting: "I'm close to tears."

"We've been in four semi-finals before but never got to the final, so with the Champions League to come as well it's unbelievable," said Arnold. "Hopefully we can use this achievement to build a sustainable club. The infrastructure needed to support a women's team unfortunately became too expensive for Bristol Rovers but we've had tremendous backing from Filton College and now we've got the chance to really develop the women's game in our part of the country."

Academy had suffered a 4-0 trouncing at Birmingham City in their opening Super League game last week and the manager, Mark Sampson, after seeing a clear-cut Cup victory built on first-half goals from the strikers Jessica Fishlock and Ann-Marie Heatherson plus a penalty from the winger Helen Bleazard, said: "The girls had two options after Thursday, either to roll over or bounce back with a really solid performance, and I never had any doubt it would be the latter.

"To get to the FA Cup final and the Champions League is a fantastic achievement and it's a reward for the people behind the scenes at the club who have put in years of hard work for a moment like this. This is for them."